Birmingham Post

by Helen Cross

August 24, 2000

Copyright Mirror Regional Newspapers 

'The older I get and the more I do, the more nervous I become,' confesses Sir Derek Jacobi. 'It seems such a silly way to earn a living. I keep thinking 'why put yourself through these terrors?'.

This nervous knight is one of our greatest actors. He has starred in both popular TV and legendary classical drama. His sparkling career ranges from two years at the Birmingham Rep in the 1960s to the popular Cadfael TV series and the current Hollywood blockbuster Gladiator.

This year he returns, after four years, to his first love, and his greatest fear, the stage. 'There are no safety nets in theatre,' Jacobi smiles. 'The buzz is huge but this makes it very frightening.  If it goes wrong, everyone sees it.  When you're working with a camera, you can do it again. But on stage you never know how the audience are going to react; it's a two-way traffic in the theatre.'

But Jacobi loves the stage above film and TV because the actor has the freedom to make all artistic decisions about his performance.   'All the choices are there on show. There is no editor and no-one has done weird and wonderful things with visuals or music. You just see all the actor.'  Here he gestures from his head to his toes. Jacobi uses his hands all the time when speaking, like the most delicate of classical conductors. 'The theatre is the only place where the actor can make it happen.'

Jacobi knows the stage actor must deliver something very special: 'It's very easy to get rusty,' he says. 'I do live in terror of losing the trick of it. I've been out of practice for four years and I feel that I have to get the trick back. Part of this is facing an audience.'

The trick he talks of is insight and instinct, not artificial craftiness. It is ten days now until the world premiere of the play which has brought Jacobi back to the British stage. God Only Knows, which opens in Malvern at the end of August, is set in an isolated Tuscan farmhouse where four British tourists are holidaying. Jacobi plays a very unexpected stranger who arrives at the farmhouse armed and on the run.

Beyond this brief outline all is a mystery. The creative team are fanatical about not yet letting the world know the controversy which rages at the heart of the play.

The production reunites Jacobi with Hugh Whitemore, the acclaimed writer responsible for the duo's hit show about Alan Turing, Breaking the Code.  For Whitemore, it is his new play's hidden controversy which makes it particularly exciting: 'One hopes the audience will go home arguing furiously in the car,' he laughs.  'I want the audience involved, not just sitting there. If a play doesn't stay with them once they've left the theatre, what's the point?'

Jacobi also admits to being curious as to how the audience will react to the play's subject matter: 'There is something in the argument of the play which could very well upset people,' he says enticingly. 'But this is often what makes a good play.There's a lot in Hamlet which upsets people.'

The delight of Jacobi lies not only in being back on stage but in the challenge of new writing: 'I feel it's so exciting to present something that is new and unexpected. The character I play is literally fighting for his life.'

This ability to illuminate the darkest heart of a character is Jacobi's trademark. 'I hope that audiences leave knowing about this man. I hope they then understand the human condition in which he finds himself. What I try to do is not demonstrate any skill as an actor but to be the person and transmit their emotions: to make them laugh and cry.  I always think I've failed if the audience leave the theatre saying 'What a good actor'. I've succeeded if they say 'What an extraordinary character that was'.'

Watching rehearsals of the opening act of God Only Knows, it seems that whatever the contentious surprise at the play's core, audiences are in for a treat. Jacobi is utterly captivating as the broken stranger tottering between madness and normality. Of his approach to shaping such complex characters, Jacobi reveals that his starting point is paradox.  'When you are playing kings you play the man inside the king, and when you play the man you play the king inside the man,' he explains. 'And when you are doing prose you serve it up as poetry and when you are doing poetry you serve it up as prose.'

It sounds so simple. But everyone knows it is a rare gift. Anthony Page, director of God Only Knows says Jacobi is incomparable. 'He's absolutely brilliant. You can see his mind working very spontaneously and he is incredibly instinctive. He infects all the cast and makes them work at their very best pitch.'

Hugh Whitemore wrote God Only Knows specifically with Jacobi in mind. 'When I started the play whenever I heard the words in my head I heard Derek saying them. He is like a great virtuoso musician who fills the stage.'

Jacobi is, surprisingly, 61 years old. Yet he is still agile and as energetic as a sprite and could easily pass for 50. In the future, Jacobi aims to do a bit more of everything and sees getting older as no bar to good roles on stage and screen.   Though he longs to do more stage work, there is one benefit of film, which no actor can turn down. 'They pay you lots of money,' he laughs, 'which they don't in the theatre. The only wealthy actors are film actors.'

And Jacobi does confess to a secret dream. 'I would give anything to do the part of the Wand Seller in the Harry Potter movie,' he muses. 'I'm a true Harry Potter fanatic.'

And I bet he does it. Magically, but without tricks